RUSTBELT RIVER ALMANAC
Life around Pittsburgh’s rivers has much to tell us, explains PATRICK McSHEA
Our rivers shape more than the land they drain. The Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio also transform all who find recreation along them. The changes are positive, cumulative and, if not permanent, easily renewable. Visit a river on our region’s network of trails, and you’ll leave the storied banks with a richer sense of place.
The expression denotes deep awareness for an area; an internalized amalgam of local geography, geology, history, flora and fauna, and even myths. People with a sense of place are, as Wallace Stegner said of American writers who exemplified the trait, “lovers of known earth, known weathers and known neighbors both human and nonhuman.”
Because birds are nonhuman neighbors, observations of their appearances can deepen our understanding of river-edge Pittsburgh. Accepting birds as a place metric might seem absurd if your principle interactions with them involve dodging Canada goose droppings on the North Shore’s Great Lawn. The following accounts therefore present bettermannered birds whose appearances make our city a richer place.
January: Gull Gathering
During the coldest weeks of the year, hundreds of gulls gather at dusk around our mighty river confluence to roost on ice. Two species, ring-billed gulls and herring gulls, predominate, but small numbers of less common birds also appear. The birds attract birders, and at vantage points between Heinz Field and Carnegie Science Center handfuls of dedicated watchers spend the last hour of daylight behind binoculars and spotting scopes.
Powerful optics are not necessary to find beauty here. Simply select an arriving gull high overhead and visually track its descent. Follow the bird as it drops below the ridge line of Mount Washington, spirals across the mosaic of color created by distant buildings on the Southside Slopes, and glides past golden Fort Pitt Bridge beams to a splash-less dark water landing.
February: Litter as Landmark
Two winters ago, when a small marsh-dwelling bird known as a sora showed-up along the Monongahela, its appearance was recorded on eBird, the online reporting system coordinated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. Ever since, on the vast archive’s map generating page, searches for “sora” and “Pittsburgh PA” produce a familiar metropolitan area outline with a clickable icon over the Duck Hollow neighborhood at the mouth of Nine Mile Run. Further exploration provides a monthlong list of sighting records, including some with photographs of the stubby-tailed bird foraging amid the creek delta’s acre-sized patch of leafless shrubs and driftwood tangles. Missing from the record, at a site once dominated by the mighty Homestead steel works across the water, are the references birders used to help one another spot the elusive visitor in the plastic-littered maze: “Focus on that piece of yellow bucket, then move toward the blue bag caught In those branches.”
March: Off-camera Eagle
One snowy March morning, a kayak launch ramp in O’Hara offered a view of a predator-prey encounter. 300 yards down the Allegheny, and 20 feet above its choppy surface, a bald eagle flapped wings big as bath towels as it circled a swimming mallard hen. Each circle included a talons-first lunge toward the duck and, in response, the smaller bird dove underwater for a few seconds. Blowing snow ended spectator views, but a 1940 publication describes a likely outcome. In “Birds of Western Pennsylvania,” W.E. Clyde Todd includes a report from Lake Erie:
“Every time the duck came to the surface, the eagle would swoop and force it under before it could get its breath. This endurance contest lasted 45 minutes before the duck finally became exhausted and lost its fight for life.”
April: Return of a Native
Many river-edge views are partially framed by sycamores. During leafless seasons, the trees’ white-barked upper limbs contrast sharply with nearby waters and distant slopes. Scan these pale canopies with binoculars in April and you might glimpse a tiny gray and white bird whose movements add daffodil-bright flashes of color. Yellow-throated warblers have such affinity for sycamores that the bird was once known as the sycamore warbler.
Over recent decades the species’ breeding range has expanded northward into our region, territory the bird disappeared from more than a century ago in a decline that remains unexplained. The bird’s song, a repeated series of high clear notes, is a great aid in locating it, but you’ll need to listen between passing trains.
May: Six-pack of Swallows
On rainy days in mid-May, bridge sidewalks can be good places to greet recent arrivals from South America.
The migrants are swallows, birds known for their graceful pursuit of flying insects. Under ideal conditions — an insect hatch on the river and rain sufficient — to keep bugs and birds close to the surface — six species can be observed. Historic nesting preferences of four are commemorated in single syllable first names — tree, barn, cliff and bank — while the rough-winged swallow and purple martin bear physical descriptions.
When hundreds of birds are feeding, their circuitous, collisionfree flight can be mesmerizing to watch: Insects rise from the water surface on wings just minutes old to take their chances among a flock of birds with continent-crossing flight skills.
June: Singers from Mexico
Invisible birds sharpen listening skills. That’s the lesson warbling vireos teach regular river watchers. This small song bird isn’t invisible, but its greenish-gray plumage readily blends into the sunlit and shadowed leaves of river-edge silver maple, cottonwood, wild grape vine and willow. Beginning in mid-May, when the tree-top loving birds return from wintering grounds in southern Mexico, they sing incessantly to claim and defend nesting and feeding territory.
Their song, described as “a pleasant lilting warble” by those who find it appealing, and as “languid” by less favorable listeners, provides a background soundtrack for early summer bicycle and kayak outings.
July: A Mallard Message
Appearances matter for mallard ducks, a bird species in which females and males sport strikingly different plumage. Where the green-headed, silver-sided drakes and mottled brown hens reside, notable reductions in hen sightings occur each spring when many are incubating eggs on nearby hidden nests. Apparent mid-summer reductions in drake numbers requires a longer explanation: Birds molt on predictable schedules. Mallard hens replace old and worn brown feathers with new ones every summer. Mallard drakes molt twice per year, a mid-summer full feather change into plumage that resembles the drab hen, and a second feather replacement cycle in the fall that restores their former splendor. In mid-summer, our green and silver waterfowl temporarily blend in with their female kin in an ongoing process of renewal.
August: Former City Residents Parade
In late August, migrating flocks of common nighthawks can be early inning distractions at Pirate home games, or the very reason for taking a hike or bike ride at dusk. The dark, pointed-winged birds are not hawks, but acrobatic pursuers of flying insects. For much of the 20th century, they were common summer residents. In neighborhoods where flat gravel roofs provided predator-free nest sites, the bird’s harsh nasal “BEENK” call was a familiar evening sound.
Pesticide overuse might explain an overall nighthawk decline across the species’ North American breeding range, with localized declines attributable to roof changes and the establishment of American crows as nest predators in cities. Despite reduced numbers, nighthawks continue to create a spectacle as they move toward their South American wintering grounds. Watch, at hilltop height, for loose river-wide “V”s of up to two dozen birds with intervals of several hundred yards between each feathered wave.
September: Rustbelt River Recovery
Exposures of half-acre-sized mud patches at creek mouths and along the inside curve of river bends occur only when water levels are low. Because the mud supports a variety of worms and other invertebrates, the flats attract birds, including some species more commonly associated with the seashore.
One recent September afternoon, a worn truck tire became more than river trash when a sparrow-sized bird known as a least sandpiper marched a muddy loop around it. The tiny bird paused twice on the circuit to probe wet sediment with its long slender bill. Otherwise, its measured steady pace called to mind a second hand’s sweep of a clock face. If any portion of the scene had been captured in a photograph, the image might well be titled “Rustbelt River Recovery.”
October: Double Rebound
A handful of osprey nests along Pittsburgh’s rivers are testimony to the recovery of both the fish-eating bird and its prey. Both rebounds are rooted in widespread public and government actions, now decades old. The Clean Water Act of 1972 spurred fish recovery. For the osprey and other birds of prey, a need for recovery was established in 1962 when the book “Silent Spring,” by Springdale native Rachel Carson, drew attention to the disruption of egg shell formation in bird species atop pesticideladen food chains. An osprey fishing on a fine October day can therefore be termed an outcome of widely adopted policies designed to minimize disruption of the biological system that supports us. The spectacle can also be thoroughly entertaining, even when a diving bird misses a fish: After struggling to rise from the water, the near eagle-sized birds trim traveling weight with dog-like shakes that send showers of water drops back to the river.
November: Arctic Refugees
Flight plans change, even for migrating birds. During a three-week period beginning in mid-November, Pittsburgh is fly-over country for thousands of tundra swans migrating from breeding areas in the Arctic to wintering grounds along Chesapeake Bay. Storms occasionally force passing flocks to seek refuge on our rivers. When the chosen waters are within sight of a highway, trail or neighborhood, the great white birds reveal their presence to unsuspecting audiences. Most viewers are instantly converted to the pleasure of swan watching, even when the activity involves standing out in rough weather, and the bird behavior on display is feather preening in preparation for a departing flight.
December: Bare-Branch Screen Beauty
In December, checking the shallow water at the base of a river trail terrace can be more rewarding than gazing across the channel. Small flocks of diving ducks occasionally rest in near shore eddies, and if your presence does not cause alarm, details as fine as eye color can be viewed without binoculars. Hooded mergansers, small yelloweyed ducks with thin dark bills and fan-shaped collapsible crests, create particularly appealing scenes. Against gray-green water, and through a screen of bare branches, the hens are a study in four shades of brown, a pallet the drakes further embellish with gleaming white and black. When the shallows are clear, it’s possible to see the steady motion of a duck’s webbed feet holding its body motionless on the river surface.